ringing » styles au

46

"so you're telling me that you basically hacked into this woman's phone, traced the number, found out where she lived, then stalked her through a string of motels just for the sake of curiosity?"

the officer summed up what he got out of harry's story, looking at them both very strangely.

"it makes it sound a lot worse when you put it like that."

"and you didn't even know whether or not mr. payne was doing anything wrong at all."

it was a statement, expressed with disbelief and utter confusion, as the police officer had no idea what was going on with this strange lot of teenagers.

"he sounded awfully bad on the phone, sir."

"mr. styles, are you trying to be funny?"

"uh, no, sir, of course not, um, uh- "

"officer, i don't want you to question them like that. i'm not pressing any charges, leave them alone."

clementine spoke up for the first time in a while, sitting up straighter in her chair and glaring at the officer.

"miss, i don't think you know what you're saying here. they were stalking you, they just admitted it themselves."

"i know exactly what i'm saying. i don't care that they were 'stalking' me. they saved me, officer, and i'll be eternally grateful. but, sir, i just want to leave. they can press charges on liam if they want, i'd rather they didn't, but i want to get out of here."

"mr. styles, mr. horan, would you like to press charges towards mr. payne?"

"well, we'd like to, but we probably can't afford a lawyer, and it's not really worth the hassle. besides, clementine doesn't want us to. it takes too much time, just let us go."

harry spoke for both him and niall, nodding at the officer as he did.

"okay then, whatever you say. we'd rather you press charges, but we can't force you into it. there's one last thing: this young lady here has already expressed that she feels safe with you, mr. styles, and she doesn't have a place to go. is she allowed to live with you for the moment?"

"absolutely, i would love her to. that's if niall's okay with it, of course."

all eyes in the room turned towards niall; clementine pleading, harry giving him that look, and the officer just begging him to make this over and done with. niall sighed, giving into the peer pressure, and also not wanting to let harry down after all they went through to get clementine away from liam payne.

"yeah, yeah, of course, sure, whatever."

"it's settled then. thank you all for your time, and you are free to go."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

what do you think of clementine and the boys' decision not to press charges?

please vote and comment :)